More than two years ago I asked the question “how much does a dog cost?” At the time my wife and I were just thinking of getting a dog. Time flies. Earlier this month we celebrated our second anniversary with Jake. Perhaps celebrated is a little strong of a world, it wasn’t like there was a candlelight dinner or anything. Even if there was, it would have been overshadowed by Lady and the Tramp anyway.

I would have started this post a half hour ago, but I was urgently needed elsewhere. Specifically there was a dog tummy that needed rubbing. That’s my favorite kind of job. It beats where I was a 24 hours earlier – the vet. Jake has developed an ear infection. It’s nothing that a little “ear squishy”, our scientific term for medication, won’t fix. Unfortunately the cost of the medication, along with his yearly shots, was $250. The cost for a doctor for my dog is more than the cost of a doctor for me.

The other surprise was the veterinarian suggesting that we look into hypoallergenic food, because he was showing signs of an allergy. I didn’t realize such things existed for dogs. The idea is to get the dog on a protein that they haven’t had before. If signs start to disappear then we can gradually introduce him to new foods to find out what’s not agreeing with him. Of course the food doesn’t come cheap. A 32 pound bag is $100 – four times what we’ve been paying.

Doctor bills and food costs aren’t really that big of a deal. It’s the vacations that get expensive. Dog sleepover camp (or what some may call a kennel) is around $40 a night. That adds up quickly in a week. The answer to this is to find a friend who is willing and able to take care of Jake. We haven’t been able to pull that off. Jake, at 72 pounds, is a little like a bull in china shop. You have to really be a dog lover and have your house set up perfectly for Jake. Fortunately, it may turn out that Revanche of A Gai Shan Life kind of fits the bill. Jake fell in love with her when they first met. He instantly quickly when on his back asking for tummy rubs. He’s only had that kind of reaction to two people. It seems like an especially good fit because she is likely getting a dog too.

When you add it up, Jake ends up costing us about $1500 a year. I man enough to admit that I pay for my best friend. Now we’re off an adventure… those fire hydrants aren’t going to water themselves you know.

This weekend, my wife and I realized that if one of us got up early and went jogging with our dog for 20 minutes we’d be hitting a new high in productivity. For one our dog (a husky/yellow lab mix) gets much needed exercise. That exercise will hopefully prevent him from getting restless during the day while we are at work (something that happens from time to time). The other half of the productivity comes from the exercise that we get. The person who doesn’t walk the dog in the morning gets and early trip to work in an effort to get home early for another dog jog.

Today I’m the one getting to work early. Traffic was a breeze at 7AM (yes it’s not the norm. I’ve found that Silicon Valley generally has later sleepers). The traffic was so good that I got into work only to find locked doors at 7:30. No one was around to let me in. That wouldn’t be a problem if I wasn’t the only person at work without a key. I had never made it a priority to get one since it was only twice previously in months and months that I was here before or after hours. Let’s hope this is just a blip in the overall plan. Something tells me that’s going to be the easy part and jogging the mile and a half in the morning is going to be a little more difficult.

When you think of great minds in personal finance you may think of Suze Orman, Dave Ramsey, or Jean Chatzky. You probably don’t think of a dog, but perhaps you should.

A few months ago my dog started doing something I had only read about in children’s books… burying dog biscuits in our yard. I remember the first time I saw him do it. I grabbed my wife and exclaimed, “Look at Jake! He’s being a dog!” (Sometimes, I’m not a wordsmith.) For a while, I thought he was just being a stupid dog. This past weekend when he retrieved one of his buried bones, something in my mind clicked.

Are you Smarter than a Dog?

Biscuits are like money for my dog. He was saving the biscuit for a rainy day when biscuits aren’t readily available. He’s learned to do what so many Americans have difficulty doing… passing up instant gratification for future benefits. I think this is noteworthy for two reasons:

As my wife reminds me from time to time, “he’s a freaking dog.” (I give him more human-like privileges than most dog owners.) We didn’t train him to bury bones and he’s never seen another dog do it. Saving appears to be hard-wired into his brain… why do we have such difficulty with it?

The second reason I find it noteworthy is that there’s significant risk and no reward to burying a bone for later. The bone may get washed away by rain or stolen by zealous squirrel. The bone itself will even likely have less “value” to a dog as it will be covered in dirt. When people save their money in banks, it comes with some security (FDIC) and they are rewarded with interest. People should be the ones doing the saving, not dogs.

This isn’t the only way he saves. Jake loves food – he’ll eat anything and everything and ask me for more. However, we found that if we give him food and leave the house, he won’t eat until we get back. I think his rationale is that there’s no guarantee we are coming back, so he better conserve his food until the providers of his food are back.

A little while back, I had asked the question of how much does a dog cost. At the time, I was speculating based on the research I had done. Today I’m a little more prepared to answered that question from a position of experience. We’ve had our puppy, for around 11 days now and I finally feel like I can extrapolate the costs of the first month of owning a dog. It’s the most expensive month of dog ownership, because you have to all the start-up costs. We are probably over $1500 in dog costs already.

Here are some examples of costs that we’ve had so far:Aren't I Worth the Money?

Dog Itself – $300 – It is pretty hard to simply extract the cost of our puppy. It came with some of it’s shots, it’s tagging, it’s fixing, and a few other things that cost money.

Dog Training – $750 – We took an unusual route and with with Bark Busters. What’s unusual about them? Well for one, the price. At $750 it’s probably the most expensive training out there. What do you get for that kind of money? Everything. Lifetime, one-on-one training at your home on your schedule. We’ve had the trainer come by twice in the first 11 days. The first was because he was howling all night and we couldn’t get him to stop. The second was just last night because he has been wanting to jump up on and bite everything in sight. So far it’s very good money spent.

Dog Vet Visit – $79 – The first dog vet visit was free (since it’s a rescue dog), but the test of his stool wasn’t free – nor was the medication for the parasites they found. It’s not a big deal and I guess a lot of dogs have it, but it’s still another $79 more than we thought

All these costs have started to grate on me a little. It’s one thing if everything is rainbows and puppy dogs smiles all the time. However, there are times during this training period where I can’t help but think, “We paid $1500 so that you can continually bite mommy’s ankles. Hmmm…” Then there are the times when he just comes up, crawls in my lap and licks my hand. It’s hard to put a value on that.

You may have noticed I’ve been a little rushed the last week. I know I probably sound like I’m always a little rushed, but this was even more so usual. On Friday of last week, we got word that, after many long hours of searching and filling out applications, we’d been matched with a puppy… the exact puppy that you see in the picture. Unfortunately, the timing couldn’t be worse… I had just started my unexpected new job and my wife was scheduled by her employer for a business trip. Then Things will be a little hectic here, posting may be reduced… but I won’t be reduced to puppy pictures. I’ll only be talking about pet ownership as it applies to money.

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